Abby Phillip: It Is A Known Known That Iran Would Retaliate If Israel Attacked Oil Fields, What Is The Rationale?
CNN host Abby Phillip on Wednesday questioned why Israel attacked the South Pars oil field and Ras Laffan energy station, knowing it would lead to retaliatory strikes by Iran.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN: They warned from the beginning that they would retaliate in exactly this way if their energy infrastructure was attacked. So, this is a known known. We have known from the beginning because of what they have said that they would do this. So, I’m just curious, I mean what is the Israeli rationale for kicking us the escalation ladder in this particular way? BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICS ANALYST: Well, we have not heard the Israeli explanation for why they made, presumably now that Trump has put it out there, we’ll hear an explanation tomorrow from the Israelis. The Israelis, I suspect what they’ll say is that the escalation is coming from the Iranian side. They have launched multiple missiles at Israel. Israeli — some Israeli civilians have been killed. Foreign workers working in Israel have been killed. Actually, Palestinians have been killed. Some of those missiles have landed in the West Bank. So, people are being killed in Israel and therefore Israel feels that it needs — that what it has done so far clearly was not enough to stop the Israelis — Iranians, and therefore they need to escalate. I suspect that some variation of what I’ve just said will be the Israeli explanation. But as we all seem to agree here, I don’t believe for a moment that the Israelis did this, attacked that gas field with the United States not knowing about it. That just seems so ungrateful.
